Another one...I must have done something right. Thank you, scalpel.

I understand gokuyum was more merciful with my bad style. And often in Turkish, that´s what I have noticed, better means shorter, more simple. If the English and Turkish sentences are as long there is something wrong with the translation. I can only imagine how my "labyrinths" sound.

What´s wrong with hiç? Its basic meaning is ´never´.

No, it´s not, gokuyum. I probably couldn´t buy bread from the bakery in the real situation. But I have learned how to use different sources and after all this time and nerve from both me and TC teachers I finally feel  -  but I say this with a very small voice  -  I have a basic idea about the Turkish sentence.

Thank you, gokuyum. There was not so much work this time, was there? Quite happy here.

1. This is the teacher who told me my son has been misbehaving in class. Bu, erkek çocuğumun sınıfta yaramazlık ettiğini bana anlatmış olan öğretmendir.

2. My friend, whom I love, sent me flowers at work last night. Sevdiğim dostum dün gece bana iş yerine çiçekler gönderdi.

3. This is the girl whose car my sister saw hit that tree last week. Bu, kız kardeşımın arabası geçen hafta o ağaca çarptığını gördüğü kız.

4. Those were the boxes which were sent to you last month but never made it here. Onlar, sana geçen ay gönderilip de hiç buraya varmamış olan kutular idi.

5. Whom shall I fear but the ones who hurt me? Beni inciten birilerden yoksa kimlerden korkacağım?

6. I asked you which of these shoes you think would go with my outfit. Sana bu ayakkabılardan hangisinin sence kıyafetime uygun olduğunu sordum.

7. I have friends who love me so much that they threw a surprise birthday party for me last night. Beni o kadar çok seven arkadaşlarım var ki benim için dün gece doğum günü partisini yaptılar.

8. That young man, to whom we owe many thanks, saved our mom´s life after the car accident. Çok teşekkürler borçlu olduğumuz o delikanlı araba kazasından sonra annemizin canını kurtardı.

9. A veiled woman whose eyes only I saw was standing in the bus stop. Yalnız gözlerini görebildiğim peçeli bir kadın otobüs durağında ayakta duruyordu.

10. In 1998 I travelled to Paris where I met my husband. Kocam ile karşılaştığım Paris’e 1998’de yolculuk ettim.

11. Marie Curie, who was born in Poland in 1867, was a scientist. 1867’de Polonya’da doğan Marie Curie bir bilim kadını idi.

12. Karen, whose surname is Johnson, is a beautiful model. Soyadı Johnson olan Karen güzel bir modeldir.

13. Van Gogh was a painter whose paintings are known worldwide. Van Gogh resimleri bütün dünyada tanınan bir ressam idi.

14. Radium is a metal which shines in the dark. Radyum karanlıkta parlayan bir madendir.

15. That is the girl whose brother is a famous footballer. Bu erkek kardeşi ünlü bir futbolcu olan kızdır.

16. The Coliseum was an amphitheatre where Romans enjoyed plays, chariot races and gladiator fights many centuries ago. Kolezyum, Romalıların çok yüzyıl önce piyes, savaş arabası yarışı ve gladiatör kavgalarından zevk aldıkları bir amphitheater idi.

17. Never get involved with a man whose wife has been murdered. Hiç karısı öldürülmüş olan bir erkek ile içli dışlı olma.

18. Watch out for men whose eyes rove while they are talking to you. Seninle konuşuyorken gözleri avare dolaşan erkeklere dikkat et.

19. Death is like a journey to a land from which there is no return. Ölüm dönüşü olmayan bir ülkeye yolculuk gibi.

I like the thread, tunci. This is the kind of information I have been missing.

Beni ağlatmayın, MarioninTurkey. I often feel it would be better if half my posts didn´t show.

1. I have been wondering if the postposition başka and the pronoun başka have slightly different meanings. It seems to me that –den başka + the 3^rd person possessive suffix always means ‘other than the thing that is marked with ablative, the choice being from the largest imaginable group’. That’s how it seems in my examples:

Bizden başkalarına benzemeye çalışanlar, bizden değildir.  -  ‘other than us’

Allah’tan başkasına yemin etmek şirk midir?  -  ‘other than Allah’

The pronoun başka (with possessive suffix and no ablative around) seems to denote a division inside the group itself, at least here:

Bazılarımız okula gidiyor, ve başkalarımız çalışıp maaşlarını alabiliyorlar.  -  ‘others  -  others’

Hz. Peygamber (sav) şöyle buyurmuştur: "Birinizin satışı üzerine başkanız satış yapmasın."  -  ‘other  -  other’

Is this the correct interpretation? başkalarımız in the above examples means ‘others of ours’. Can it also mean ‘others than us’ (some occurances make me wonder) or is this meaning always carried by the postposition structure?

2. I find strange uses of the adjective başka:

bir başka ülke

bir başka kadın

What are they?

...I mean bakmayınız.

No sorries for me. You acted like you always act, tunci: emphatic and responsible. But if we were all like you it would be so dull here. It doesn´t harm if there is some action now and then. As for my part, kusura bakmayın.

Language is not strict borders, language is continuums. This concerns classification of languages also. I am no specialist of dropping or not dropping but it seems clear to me that many languages drop but some drop more than others. The most probable sentence element to be dropped is the subject. This happens in many languages. The next to go is the object. In Turkish, the object also often has to go. Look at recipes. I paid attention to this and even asked about it recently: http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_52102. They say in Japanese even other elements can take their things and go.

It is a continuum, not a strict classification. Just like in auxiliaries which we also discussed some weeks ago: it is not that some languages have auxiliaries and some don´t. There are many alternatives in between.

I wish instead of paying attention to the bubbling of this discussion everyone would read scalpel´s post nr 18 because it is well thought of and a good basis for discussion. The main idea in it is not to criticize anyone or anything but to really look at this issue in detail. At least I want to see it this way.

But the reason why pro-drop first appeared in this discussion was si++’s assumption that dropping 3^rd person pronouns significantly lessens the chance of it to carry in the sentence elements like masculine and feminine marking. It sounds reasonable to me and as far as I understand no one has objected this idea.

TC is an important part of my life and it depresses me to see nice threads changing into disputes here. We are here not to prove our superiority but to co-operate. It´s not about us, it´s about this fine language which we are all interested in.